VLAM appoints Filip Fontaine as its new Chief Executive

VLAM, Flanders’ Agricultural Marketing Board is delighted to announce that Filip Fontaine has been appointed as Chief Executive of its Board, with effect from July 1, 2019. Fontaine succeeds Frans De Wachter who is set to retire after a long career with VLAM.

After his Agricultural Engineering studies at the University of Leuven, 56-year old Filip Fontaine held various jobs in the agricultural and horticultural sectors. He started his career as a project manager and environmental advisor at Boerenbond and subsequently worked at Cera for a while to then start as the director of various fruit and vegetable auctions in 1998.

Fontaine successfully rounded off a number of mergers there and helped initiate the foundation of BelOrta. He recently fulfilled the position of interim CEO at EIT Food and is currently still doing so at Lidwina, an adapted work enterprise in the Kempen.

Commenting on the appointment Fontaine said, “Flemish agricultural, horticultural and fishing products stand out thanks to their quality, sustainability, transparency and efficient production. This should be communicated in Europe and the rest of the world. I can see three major tasks for VLAM at international level in the next few years. Firstly, VLAM must consolidate the existing core markets and open up new markets for our Flemish export. Secondly, we must make smart use of our limited resources, amongst other things by using them as a lever in European subsidy programmes. And thirdly we will increase the impact of our marketing programmes by standing out together as one. Giving our products the place in the spotlight that they deserve all over the world: we will aim for that together.”